by Fred C. Frost ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 29, 2017
An intriguing and heartfelt but overreaching attempt to find Christian consolation in even the worst complications life can...
A longtime nurse and minister explores the spiritual dimensions of physical illness.
Debut author Frost reports that he’s been sensitive to the correlation between physical disorders and Christian lessons since his earliest days in nursing school. That’s when he first began to see parallels between Scripture and medical care (pathology, diagnosis, and treatment). “I believe God has intertwined the physical and spiritual body,” he writes, “in such a way to reveal a mystery here that unlocks powerful insight into the workings of both.” Frost’s earnest book delves into the spiritual facets of a whole range of health problems, from heart disease and cancer to less likely candidates like STDs, obesity, and even constipation. In all these cases, the author looks for what he calls “intercessory prayer warriors”: “They are spiritual paramedics,” he writes, “EMTs, and health care workers who must always be ready to rescue those in spiritual danger.” In his diverse examples, Frost draws lessons from physical ailments, all of them derived from Christian Scripture, as in his chapter on immunity disorders. After a careful and detailed explanation of blood cell types and the like, he shifts to discussing spiritual aspects. “We need the blood in every ministry in order for each to live,” he writes. “Circulate the blood of Christ in your preaching, and the lost will be saved.” Readers should notice immediately what Frost himself freely admits: that some of these parallels are long, long stretches, untenable except perhaps for the fundamentalist Christians who are undoubtedly the author’s target audience. Frost’s imagination, rhetorical inventiveness, and sincerity notwithstanding, there’s something noticeably absurd in trying to find a spiritual element to chlamydia or cholesterol. For every such malady, the author insists, “God has a message He wants to convey to us or those around us.” But readers who’ve come face to face with the essential pointlessness of suffering may be harder to convince.
An intriguing and heartfelt but overreaching attempt to find Christian consolation in even the worst complications life can throw at people.Pub Date: April 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-1817-6
Page Count: 198
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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BOOK REVIEW
by R. Crumb ; illustrated by R. Crumb ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 2009
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
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